together to the disadvantage of the Siamese, who were repeatedly defeated with great slaughter; their capital was sacked by the Burmese in 1766, who besides took all their maritime possessions on the bay of Bengal and along the west coast of the Malay peninsula, including the important places of Tavoy, Mergui, and Tenasserim. Though greatly reduced by this unsuccessful war, and frequently brought to the brink of ruin, Siam still exists as an independent kingdom, to which it is indebted partly to the dissensions of the Burmese, and partly to the actual strength of the country.

An embassy was sent to Siam by the British government in 1822, which was placed under the charge of Mr. Crawford, who had an audience of the king of Siam, by whom he was received so favourably, that he had every reason to expect a favourable termination to his mission. But these hopes were frustrated by the jealous and unaccommodating policy of the government. They made propositions one day which were revoked the next; and displayed their faithless character so clearly, that all negotiations were finally broken off; and the embassy were finally interdicted from going about the town or on the river, and were not allowed to trade. An American embassy was more agreeably received by this jealous government in 1833, and it is said succeeded in concluding a commercial treaty with the government. Asiatic Journal, new series. Hamilton's Gazetteer.

a vast tract of territory comprehending the northern regions of Asia, which has been partly described under Russia; so that it will only be necessary in this place to supply some particulars which have not been so fully detailed in the former article. Siberia may be considered as a gradually descending plain from the Altai mountains to the Frozen Ocean, which is indeed indicated by the course of all the great rivers, the Obi, the Jenesei, and the Lena, which flow from these mountains in a northerly course until they terminate in that sea. Although under the dominion of Russia, and of regular government, improvements have been gradually diffused amongst its rude tribes; and although cities, some of them populous and thriving, have risen up, yet it is on the whole a barren and unproductive country, the predominance of cold throughout the greater part of it chilling the progress of vegetation, and preventing either fruits or grain from arriving at maturity. Nor, though it is by no means destitute of rivers, is the direction which they take calculated to favour the course of commerce, or to give facilities for the transmission of its productions from one part of the country to another. Flowing, as already stated, from south to north, they run out of the regions of civilization and commerce into those of perpetual winter; they lead into inhospitable deserts, to which there is no resort either of goods or of men; and therefore they are, and will ever remain, useless for the purposes of trade, and of little use to the country through which they flow. Nor is there by sea any easy access to this cold and inhospitable tract. The Frozen Ocean on the north presents an insuperable barrier to navigation; and the eastern shore, washed by the Pacific Ocean, is so far removed from the great seats of wealth and commerce in Europe, that no great intercourse can ever take place. Siberia has no surplus produce that can tempt a European vessel to perform the circuit of half the globe in order to obtain it.

This region was unknown in the ancient world. The knowledge of the Greeks and Romans did not extend beyond Scythia, or independent Tartary; they were altogether ignorant of the vast regions which lay farther to the east and north, from which issued those vast hordes of barbarians who overthrew the Roman empire. During the devastations and wars which succeeded, and by which the great empires of Asia were shaken and thrown down, a greater knowledge was obtained of these northern regions, especially by the Mahommedan conquerors; but it does not appear that they ever penetrated into these districts, or that they were ever thoroughly explored until the progress of Russian conquest brought them under the sway of this rising power, which did not take place till the middle of the sixteenth century. In the reign of John Basilowitz I., indeed, an incursion had been made into Siberia, and some Tartar tribes subdued; but these conquests were not permanent, and we hear of no further communication between Russia and Siberia till the time of John Basilowitz II. It was opened again at that time by means of Anika Strogonoff, a Russian merchant, who had established some salt-works at a town in the government of Archangel. This man carried on a trade with the Samoiedes who inhabited the banks of the Obi and the Petchora, and who are accustomed to come along the river Vitenegea to its confluence with the Dwina, where they exchanged their furs with the Russians. He acquired in this manner a considerable fortune in a short time; and he determined on exploring the districts whence these valuable commodities were derived. He sent thither a party of his dependents, who, in exchange for Dutch toys and other trifles, obtained the most valuable furs. He judged it prudent, after he had carried on the trade for some time, to communicate the whole affair to the brother of the reigning emperor, Theodore Ivanowitch, and ultimately his successor. The Czar perceiving the advantage that might be derived by his subjects from a regular intercourse with Siberia, despatched a body of troops into that country, chiefly needy adventurers, who crossed the mountains that form the north-eastern boundary of Europe, though they never seem to have passed the Irtysh, or have penetrated beyond the western branch of the Obi. The people they met with were rude and barbarous; they were small in stature, destitute of towns and villages, ignorant of bread, and subsisting entirely by fishing and the chase. They were struck with the novelty of what they saw, and with a variety of unknown animals; with men riding on elks, or dervises mounted on sledges drawn by rein-deer or dogs. The natives received with high gratification the presents that were brought to them, and they eagerly in return desired to visit the Russian capital, of which their visitors had given them a splendid description. They were dazzled with the magnificence of Moscow and the emperor. Some Tartar tribes were laid under contribution, and a chief named Yediger consented to pay an annual tribute of a thousand sables. But this produced no lasting advantage to Russia; for, soon afterwards, Yediger was defeated and taken prisoner by Kutchum Khan, a descendant of the great Genghiz Khan; and thus the allegiance of this country to Russia was dissolved.

For some time we hear of no further attempts made by the Russians on Siberia; but in 1577 the foundation of a permanent conquest was laid by Yermac Temofeef, a Cossack of the Don. This man was at first the head of a banditti who infested the Russians in the province of Casan; but being defeated by the troops of the Czar, he retired with six thousand of his followers into the interior parts of that province. Continuing his course still eastward, he came to Orel, the most easterly of all the Russian settlements; and here he took up his winter quarters. But his restless genius did not suffer him to continue for any length of time in a state of inactivity; and from the intelligence he procured concerning the situation of the neighbouring Tartars of Siberia, he turned his arms towards that quarter. Siberia was at that time partly divided amongst a number of separate princes, and partly inhabited by the various tribes of independent Tartars. Of the former Kutchum Khan was the most powerful sovereign. His dominions consisted of that tract of country which now forms the south-western part of the province of Tobolsk, and stretched from the banks of the Irtysh and Obi to those of the Tobal and Tura. His principal residence was at Sibir, a small fortress upon the river Irtysh, not far from the present town. of Tobolsk, and of which some ruins are still to be seen.

After a course of unmitting fatigue, and a series of victories which almost exceed belief, but of which we have not room to give the detail, our intrepid adventurer disposed this prince of his dominions, and seated himself on the throne of Sibir. The number of his followers, however, being greatly reduced, and perceiving he could not depend on the affection of his new subjects, he had recourse to the Czar of Muscovy, and made a tender of his acquisitions to that monarch, upon condition of receiving immediate and effectual support. This proposal was received with the greatest satisfaction by the Czar, who granted him a pardon for all former offences, and sent him the required succours. Yermac, however, being soon after drowned in an unsuccessful excursion, the Russians began to lose their footing in the country. But fresh reinforcements being sent, they not only recovered their ground, but pushed their conquests far and wide; and wherever they appeared, the Tartars were either reduced or exterminated. New towns were built, and colonies were planted on all sides. Before a century had elapsed, all that vast tract of country now called Siberia, which stretches from the confines of Europe to the Eastern ocean, and from the Frozen sea to the present frontiers of China, was annexed to the Russian dominions.

The air of Siberia is extremely piercing; and it is remarked that in advancing eastward it becomes more intense. M. Gmelin, who was sent to explore this country in 1733, gives some remarkable examples of the extreme cold which prevails. He mentions, that at the foot of Kiriga, on the 10th of February 1738, the mercury, at eight in the morning, stood at 25° in the thermometer which he had along with him, and which answers to 72° in Fahrenheit below 0. In December, at the same place, it answered to 90° in Fahrenheit below zero, about three in the afternoon; and afterwards in the course of the same month, to 99, 107, and 113 below 0, the greatest cold answering to 120° in Fahrenheit below 0. At this time sparrows and magpies were seen to fall to the ground struck dead with the intense cold, but revived if they were speedily brought into a warm room. The air at this time is represented as if it were changed to ice, a thick fog, not dissipated by any exhalations as in spring and autumn; and the writer states that he could scarcely stand three minutes in the porch of his house for cold. At Yakutsk, on the Lena, in November, Captain Cochrane mentions that Reaumur's thermometer stood at 32° and 35°, which answers to 40° and 45° in Fahrenheit below zero; in his journey to Irkutsk it stood at 30° of Fahrenheit, and 35° below zero; and on the 13th of January the rapid waters of Angora were bound up by the frost, and it became passable on the ice. The Siberian rivers are however frozen earlier, and it is late in the spring before they are thawed. The northern and eastern districts of Siberia are rendered unfit for agriculture by the excessive cold. The whole tract beyond the 60th degree of N. lat. is a barren waste, yielding neither corn nor fruits. Pallas mentions, that to the north of Demiansk, a village in the government of Demiansk in about 59° N. lat., hardly anything is reared but barley and oats, at most but a little grain. Hemp and flax are sown, but in three years they have scarcely one tolerable crop. The cabbage that is sown produces no head, but spreads itself in loose green leaves. The repeated attempts that have been made about Okhotsk, between 59° and 60° N. lat., and 160° E. long., or at Udkog-Ostrog, 50° 20' lat., 150° 40' long, to cultivate corn, have been entirely unsuccessful, the long winter, and the night frosts in autumn preventing either fruits or grain from coming to perfection; and in Kamtschatka, where the southernmost course terminates in 51° N. lat., similar trials have been made without success. A great part of the Siberian territory that is situated in a more temperate climate, being composed of marshy and saline steppes, is extremely barren. But there are other tracts that are equally productive, that not only abound in extensive pastures, but produce abundance of grain, not of wheat, but of barley, rye, and other inferior descriptions; whilst farther south there are districts of remarkable fertility. Amongst the Ural and other ranges of mountains, rich and verdant vales and glens are to be met with, which afford pastures for numerous herds of cattle; a remarkably wealthy district extends along the heart of the Tobol, Iset, and the Isaim, and is so abundant in grain, that it supplies the government of Tobolsk, as well as the provinces of Perm and Orenburg. Also in the territory of Krasnoyansk, a circle town of the government of Kolhyran, between 55° and 56° of N. lat., such is the fertility of the soil, notwithstanding the severe and continued winter, that no instance was known of a general failure. This fertile tract commences at Krasnoyansk, and extends to Baikal and the surrounding countries. The quality of the soil is here so rich, being of a black and light mould, that it rejects the use of manure. Most of the fields, if they are left fallow for one year, continue to bear ten or fifteen years more. In consequence of this fertility, provisions are abundant and cheap. Not only are oats, barley, and rye cultivated, but also wheat, though it is not so abundant. These countries, which, if they were industriously cultivated, might give subsistence to populous nations, are chiefly covered with pastures. Beyond the lake Baikal, especially towards the east, as far as the river Argun, they are remarkably fruitful and pleasant; but such is the indolence of the inhabitants, that several fine tracts of land, which would make ample returns to the peasant for cultivating them, lie neglected. The pastures are excellent, and abound in fine horned cattle, horses, goats, and other beasts, on which the Tartars chiefly depend for subsistence. However, there are several steppes or barren wastes, and unimproved tracts in these parts; and not a single fruit tree is to be seen. There is great variety of vegetables, and in several places, particularly near Krasnoia Sloboda, the ground is in a manner overrun with asparagus of an extraordinary height and delicious flavour. The bulbs of the Turkish and other sorts of lilies, are much used by the Tartars instead of bread. This want of fruit and corn is richly compensated by the great quantities of wild and tame beasts and fowls, and the infinite variety of fine fish which the country affords.

In that part of Siberia which lies near the icy sea, as well as in several other places, there are woods of pine, larch, and other trees; besides which, a considerable quantity of wood is thrown ashore by the waves of the icy sea, but whence it comes, is not yet ascertained. On the Ural mountains also, are found pines, birch, fir, cedar, larch, aspen, alder; and on the opposite side a few oaks, elms, lindens, and other trees.

The extreme rigour of the climate, which stunts the vegetation of Siberia, has no effect on the animal creation, which abounds in the most frozen and desolate tracts. Nature, in protecting from the rigour of the cold those animals with a thick fur, which in its rich gloss and softness no art can rival, has rendered them valuable, and they are accordingly hunted for their skin, which forms an important article of commerce. Of all these furs, the most valuable is the sable, which is found on a species of weasel. This animal is met with in Asiatic Russia, from the Aleutian islands, and from Kamtschatka to the districts of the Petschora and the Kama. The finest sables are those which come from Yakutsk and Wertschink; and amongst these are

---

1 Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, vol. ii. p. 108. 2 Tooke's View of the Russian Empire, vol. iii. p. 238. found the rare and precious yellow, and still more rarely, the white sable. In Kamtschatka, these precious furs are to be found in the greatest abundance, but not of so fine a quality; the skin being thick, and the hair long, but not very black. When this country was first invaded by Europeans, these animals were in such abundance, that for iron wire to the amount of ten rubles, sables might have been obtained to the amount of five or six hundred. But the animal has been so diligently hunted, that it has become scarce, so that one skin may be exchanged on the spot for ten pounds.

The great art is, to catch the animal without injuring the skin, for which purpose various contrivances are resorted to. The hunter, following the track of the animal, discovers his covert, which is usually a burrow in the earth; the animal, to escape him, ascends a hollow tree, which the hunter immediately surrounds with a net; and kindling a fire under it, forces the little creature to descend, when it falls into the net and is caught. Various other animals are hunted for their skins, which form a considerable article of commerce. Wild-fowl abound everywhere in Siberia, namely, wild ducks and geese, swans, woodcocks, snipes, bustards, snow-birds, pheasants, partridges, &c.; these are so plentiful, that even in the governments which are the poorest in wild animals, they form an ordinary and not very costly dish. The elder fowl, which supplies the fine and soft down that is so much esteemed in all countries, harbours about the coasts of the White Sea and the Northern Ocean. In Siberia are found the prodigious remains of animals, none of which are now found to exist; the bones and entire carcass of the mammoth, that extraordinary animal, which surpasses in bulk every known species, is found preserved in the ice on the shores of rivers in the north, and on the coasts of the Frozen Ocean. The bones of the elephant and rhinoceros occur also in vast quantities. The seas that wash the coasts of Siberia, and the rivers, teem with a great variety of marine animals and with fish. The Frozen Ocean and the Eastern Seas abound in whales, seals, otters, also the narwhal, the pott-fish, from whose brain spermaceti is prepared, the sea dog, the dolphin, the sealion, the sea cow, the sea bear, and various other species, which are sought after for their skin or their blubber. The Obi abounds beyond all the others in vast quantities of migrating fish which pass from the sea; not only those which are found in other rivers, but a variety of fish which are caught no where else, namely, sturgeons, starlet, white salmon, pikes, murcena, or white salmon of Pallas, quobbe, and a multitude of other fish, of which the Russian names would convey no information to the reader. The migrating fish proceed up the rivers in June, and the fishing in the Obi is carried on by the Ostiacks and Samoiedes. The Irtysh, the Jenisei, and the Lena, as well as their numerous tributaries, contain abundance of excellent fish, mostly resembling those already named. The fishing on the coasts and islands of the Eastern ocean is remarkable for the variety and quality of its objects; and as agriculture is here impracticable from the soil and the climate, the inhabitants depend for their subsistence on the fishing, and the chase. All the large cetacea of the Arctic seas are here pursued with avidity, and the oil which they afford forms an article of commerce. Of all the lesser animals which are objects of the chase on the Eastern ocean, the sea otter is the most important. Its beautiful fur is everywhere highly esteemed, and sells in China for a very high price. The rivers in Kamtschatka abound more especially with fish, which supply the inhabitants with subsistence, which no labour could extract from the barren soil. These fish, which are mostly of the salmon kind, proceed up the rivers in such vast multitudes, that the shores are often found covered with the dead.

Mountains

The surface of Siberia is diversified by alternate ranges of mountains and by widely extended plains. The Ural mountains, so called from the Tartar word signifying a belt or girdle, which form the natural boundary between Asia and Europe, extend almost in a direct line above 1500 English miles. The mountains between the Caspian and the Aral may be considered as the commencement of the Ural mountains; which, after being divided by the straits of Weygat, terminate in the mountain chain of Nova Zembla; several subordinate ridges branching off in a western, as well as in an eastern direction, from the same chain. These mountains are rich in minerals, and they are in many parts also clothed with tall firs, larches, birch, and other woods. They are well watered by rivers, and at different degrees of elevation are found beautiful pellucid lakes, ponds, and numerous streams, all teeming with fish. The breadth of the Ural mountains at Solikamskoi and Verchoturia, the high road out of European Russia, is about forty miles, and their height from four to five thousand feet. At their northern extremity, along the lower Obi, their elevation is not so great. The Ural mountains, at their northern extremity, lock in by several ridges with the great Altaic chain, which traverses northern Asia from west to east through its whole extent, and fix the respective limits of the Chinese empire from the Irtysh to the Amour. The great Altai stretches northward beyond Siberia, into the regions of Tartary; and proceeding with various windings toward the N.N.E., throws out considerable masses, between which the head waters of the Jenesei, the Obi, and the Irtysh, take their rise; and the lesser Altai separates the Chinese territories from the Russian government of Kolivan, through which the streams mentioned above pursue their course. Near its summit a Chinese patrol was found guarding the limits of the empire by the traveller Shcangin. The highest mountains consist of granite, and are covered with perpetual snow. The lower mountains consist of porphyry, jasper, and serpentine, and exhibit many beautiful varieties of these rocks. The highest summit of these mountains, in the government of Kolivan, does not rise more than 3000 feet above the level of thesea. One summit, however, to the north of the river Ouba, has an elevation of 5691 feet. Although the Altai mountains bear different names, they range eastward as far as the ocean. The higher parts are generally bare, and the shores of the rivers which run through them are generally clothed with forests. As they extend east from the Jenesei to the Baikal sea, they assume a grander character, and are called the Sayanskoi mountains. They are chiefly naked granite rocks, sharp and abrupt, and frequented chiefly by hunters; and they determine the boundaries between Siberia and Mongolia. The mountains of Baikal have nearly the same direction as that sea, and run down to the west on the right of the Angora, where it flattens in a morasse steppe of prodigious extent. To the east, it advances from the origin of the Lena on both sides of that river, and here it is lost in a wide extended floezy ridge. In the inferior regions of the Angora and the Lena, coal is frequently produced. Several of these mountain ranges in the neighbourhood of the Baikal are so high, that they are covered with perpetual snow. The Nerthinskoi mountains, otherwise called the mountains of Daouris, extend from the lake Baikal and the sources of the Selenga and the Amour, down the two sides of these rivers; on the one side, as far as where the Argoon falls into the Amour; and on the other, or northern side, up to the sources of the Niusa and the Oldekon, where it joins the spacious range of Okhotsk. The portion of this range enclosed by the Amoor and Argoon, which is properly called the Nerthinskoi chain of mountains, is found to be the richest in minerals of any of the mountains hitherto explored in these regions; producing, amongst other sorts, zinc, iron, copper, and lead ores containing silver and gold. These mountains present, according to the descriptions of a traveller who visited them in search of the rhubarb plant, a wild scene of desolation; thick woods, torrents and precipices, without a human habitation, except a few sheds erected by hunters when they are in pursuit of game. In approaching the eastern ocean, these mountains decline in elevation, and turning to the north, run parallel to the sea, leaving a narrow space between them. The mountains of Okhotsk run northward down the Lena to Yakutsk; one runs eastward to the sea of Okhotsk, whilst another continues its course with the peninsula of Kamtschatka, which consists of a rocky chain of mountains, about which little information has ever been acquired.

The surface of Siberia comprises every variety of soil. The tracts which are called steppes are dry, elevated, and extensive plains, which are not inhabited, and some of them, which are uninhabitable, are destitute both of food and water. Others have shrubs growing on them or a stunted herbage, and are watered by streams or wells, though without inhabitants, and thus afford pasture to the herds and flocks of the shepherds who range over these desolate plains. In regard to the soil on these steppes, great variety prevails, none being fruitful and proper for meadow or arable land, or indiscriminately for both; in others the soil is unfruitful, whether it be sand or salt, or in some cases of a rocky formation.

Siberia is well watered by numerous and large rivers, an account of which may be found in the article RUSSIA. It may merely be mentioned here, that those great rivers are the Irtysh, the Obi, the Jenesei, and the Lena, which have all their sources in the frontier range of mountains, and roll onwards to the Frozen Ocean. All the other numerous rivers which rise in Siberia, are tributaries of those main rivers.

The cold and mountainous regions of Siberia are great depositories of those vast stores of mineral wealth by which the Russian empire is encircled. The elevated districts of this vast country abound in the most precious ores of all the different metals.

An official account of the produce of the mines of gold, silver, and platina, in Russia, has been published at St. Petersburg; it embraces a period of sixteen years, from 1823 to 1838 inclusive, and shews the following results:

| Produce of the Imperial mines— | Gold. | Silver. | Platina. | |-------------------------------|-------|---------|---------| | In Ural. | 1,592½| ... | 29 | | In Altai. | 538½ | 14,704½| ... | | In Nerchinskoi. | 9¾ | 3,301¾ | ... | | Produce of mines belonging to individuals. | 3,009¾ | ... | 1,230 |

Value in Sterling about L.12,000,000 and L.6,000,000.

During the same period, the value of money coined at the Imperial Mint at St. Petersburg, from Russian and foreign bullion, was about L.14,000,000 in gold, L.8,000,000 in silver, and L.400,000 in platina.

The population of Siberia consists of numerous tribes, who differ in their origin and their manners, and have been gradually subjected to the Russian authority, paying a stated tribute, which is not oppressive, and following their own pursuits unmolested. The Mongols, who withdrew from the Chinese dominion during the last century, and voluntarily placed themselves under the dominion of Russia, inhabit the regions about the Selenga, in the government of Irkutsk, from the 122d to the 125th degree of longitude, and between the 50th and 53d degree of north latitude. They consist of seven stems, or twenty families, which were estimated to compose 6918 males in 1766. The Burats inhabit Daouria, the banks of the Selenga, of the lake Baikal, and of the Upper Jenesei. They are remarkably industrious, and are chiefly employed in pastoral pursuits. The Tartars form a very numerous race, and are found scattered over Siberia, under the different appellations of Tobolskian Tartars, from the river Tobol, on which they dwell; the Tomskian Tartars, who inhabit both sides of the river Tom, above and below the city of Tomsk; the Krasnayarskian and the Kusneretskian Tartars, who greatly resemble the Mongolian tribes; the Tartars of the Obi, who are partly agricultural and partly pastoral in their habits; the Tartar tribe, which dwelt formerly between the Obi and the Jenesei, but which now inhabit the whole country along the river Tschulym; other tribes, of which it would serve little purpose to give the barbarous appellations, inhabit the country between the Obi and the Irtysh, which is called the steppe of Baraba. There are others on the left shore of the Jenesei, upon which they follow their pastoral occupations amongst the Sayome mountains. Certain districts in the governments of Tobolsk and Kolhyvan, and partly in the eastern half of that of Perm, beyond the Ural mountains, are to be regarded as the peculiar home and seat of the Siberian Tartars. The northern districts of Siberia are possessed by twenty tribes, peculiar to itself. The principal are the Tungouses on the Jenesei, the Ostiaks, the Yakantes, the Samoiedes, and the Tchantchis. The extensive deserts on which roam the pastoral tribe of the Tungouses, extend eastward across the Lena, as far as the Amoor and the Eastern Ocean. They extend northward from the 53d to the 65th degree. The history of the Samoiedes is little known. Their present abodes are on the coasts of the Frozen Ocean, from about the 65th degree of north latitude, quite to the sea shore. They swarm up to the 75th degree of north latitude, dwelling on the coldest and most desolate regions of the earth, from the White Sea to the other side of the Jenesei, and almost up to the Lena, and, therefore, being both in Europe and in Siberia. There are the Ostiaks of the Obi, of the Narym, and of the Jenesei. The Ostiaks are not numerous; but they include many subordinate tribes, which it is unnecessary to specify by name, as they all resemble each other in manners. Giorgi gives the following statement of the population in 1801. In the government of Tobolsk, 622,422; in the government of Irkutsk, 451,937.

The religion generally diffused amongst these wild tribes, if it deserve the name, is a rude superstition, or idolatry, congenial to the state of barbarism which generally prevails. The system of Boodhi, or of the Lamas, is the creed of the Mongols and Tartars; and the residence of the Lama, the chief of that religion, is on the Upper Selenga, to the south of Baikal. The great temple was entered by a late traveller, who found there about a hundred priests, clothed in red, and seated in successive rows. The high-priest was seated upon a lofty and splendid throne, behind which was an altar, upon which were placed the images of their gods, the inferior ones being arranged in rows along the wall. Offerings were presented to them of rice, brandy, and sometimes a hen or sheep roasted whole. Their worship consists in a great measure of noise, the most formidable sounds being produced by a combination of the most noisy instruments, such as bells, kettle-drums, trumpets, shells, and other instruments. Those superstitious rites are, however, denounced by the pure followers of the genuine Lamas. They practise other vile and bloody rites, by way of expiating the anger of their gods; such as leaping, and howling in a frightful manner, and pretending to wound their backs with knives. Amongst the rude wanderers in the northern regions of Siberia complete paganism prevails, consisting of the ignorant arts of sorcery, and the worship of deformed stone images. The light of Christianity has hardly yet penetrated into these benighted regions. By the recent enterprising and active efforts, however, of the missionary societies of Britain, aided by the countenance of the Russian government, a beginning has been made in the great work of civilizing and of converting these barbarous tribes. Sibyls. Missionaries have been spread over the country; and the sacred volume has been translated into some of the native languages, and distributed amongst the natives. The greatest obstacle to their conversion arises from their brutal ignorance and their debased habits.

Commerce. The commerce of Siberia consists in those products which are consumed at home, and of those which are exported to European Russia, in return for foreign products. The exports are chiefly metals and furs, besides those commodities from China and the East, of which Siberia is merely the depot in their transit to Europe. The two staple commodities of export, namely, metals and furs, are chiefly monopolised by the government, to whose officers the tribute of the wandering tribes is paid in furs; and for these no return is made, unless in the salaries of the civil and military officers, or the pay of the troops.

Siberia is divided into two governments, namely, Tobolsk and Irkutsk, which are again subdivided, the former into the four circles of Tobolsk proper, Tomsk, Yeniceysk, and Kolyvan; the latter, into Irkutsk proper, Nertschink, Yakutsk, and Okhotsk, in which last is included Kamtschatka, with the islands.